Brooks Jensen Arts - Every Picture Is a Compromise

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Every Picture Is a Compromise

Lessons from the Also-rans

Most photography websites show the photographer's very best work. Wonderful. But that's not the full story of a creative life. If we want to learn, we'd better pay attention to the images that aren't "greatest hits" and see what lessons they have to offer. Every picture is a compromise — the sum of its parts, optical, technical, visual, emotional, and even cosmic – well, maybe not cosmic, but sometimes spiritual. Success on all fronts is rare. It's ok to learn from those that are not our best.

This is a series about my also-rans, some of which I've been able to improve at bit (i.e., "best effort"), none of which I would consider my best. With each there are lessons worth sharing, so I will.

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Potential Project Ideas Week

I'm on a two-month long trip to the West coast to do some photography and a couple of presentations. This week, I'll explore some potential projects from my first couple of weeks on the road.

What I saw that I liked:

In yesterday's images from the abandoned church, I couldn't get inside. Today's images are from a small church by the side of the road that was open and I could get inside.

What I don't like in the picture:

The first shot above was just so I had the name of the church. I'll often take a shot like this one that records not only the name but the GPS location in the EXIF data of the RAW file. A form of note taking, if you will.

Is this a potential project?

From the inside of these abandoned places, there are often remnants of the people and their activities in the building. I find this much more interesting than the architecture of the building itself.

This little project yielded 10 images that are not duplicate compositions. I'm confident this will become a Seeing in SIXES project after I eliminate 4 of the images that are not necessary.

Additional comments:

There is one other image from this church that I lost dues to camera movement. It was a picture of a piano shot handheld at 1/4 second. I made 4 exposures hoping one of them would be sharp. One of the almost is, but not quite. I probably won't need it anyway. That said, A QUARTER OF A SECOND HANDHELD! Fifty years ago when I started photography, who would have thought this was possible?